


Airborne

by hailtherandom



Series: Ficmas 2k14 [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Actual USAF Power Couple Carol and Rhodey, Air Force, Carol and Rhodey Have Responsibilities, Developing Relationship, F/M, Flying, Gen, Happy Ending, Multi, Oblivious Sam Wilson, Okay A Lot Of Kissing, Polyamory Negotiations, Sam Wilson is a Fanboy, Sam Wilson's Wings, Some kissing, The Air Force Charity Ball, war machine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-03 22:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2889704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailtherandom/pseuds/hailtherandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Hey, Wilson! That’s Rhodey," Tony booms.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>"No shit?" Sam says, once he's picked his jaw up off the floor.</i>
</p><p>In which Sam meets his piloting heroes, does some flying, and learns more about James Rhodes and Carol Danvers than he ever intended to or believed himself lucky enough to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pluvialcity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluvialcity/gifts).



> Christmas present for [plu](http://pluvialcity.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Eyyy a ~~two~~ three parter, thus taking up more days of Christmas! What an unintended loophole! 8D

"Sam, this is Clint Barton," Natasha says.

Sam grins and takes Barton's offered hand. "Nat's told me all about you. You ready to get hammered tonight?"

 

"Sam, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts," Steve says, gesturing between the two.

"Nice to meet you," Sam says politely, because he wasn't raised in a goddamned barn.

 

"Sam, this is Thor," Clint says. "The literal God of thunder. Thor, Sam Wilson."

Thor grins. "Welcome, son of Wil."

"Thanks?" Sam says, confused but pleased. "You too."

 

"Is that the Hulk?"

"No," Natasha says flatly. "That's Bruce Banner."

“Bruce Banner,” Sam repeats. Bruce’s head pokes up from behind a series of computer monitors, glasses askew. “Pleasure.”

 

"Hey, Wilson! That’s Rhodey," Tony booms.

"No shit?" Sam says, once he's picked his jaw up off the floor.

Colonel Rhodes - Rhodey -  is leaning against the bar in Tony’s lounge, bottle in hand and talking to Pepper. He laughs at something she says and takes a long swig of beer. Pepper actually towers over him a little bit in her heels. He looks positively normal - nothing like the news reels and the army broadcasts he’s seen, where Colonel Rhodes creates inspiration and fear in the same sentences. Sam has seen James Rhodes's face in propaganda and enrollment tapes and recorded lectures alike for his entire Air Force career.

And there he is, right across the room.

“Shit,” Tony confirms. “James Rupert Rhodes, in the flesh.”

“That’s so cool that I’m not even gonna make fun of him for that middle name.”

“Trust me, it’s been done.” Tony takes a sip of champagne. “You gonna go talk to him instead of just staring?”

“I’m not staring!”

Tony snorts. “Please. You look like a teenage girl with a crush. Not that Rhodey’s up for grabs, and it’s a nice night and Pepper will kill me if I give you the shovel talk. But go get that.”

“There’s nothing to go get,” Sam protests. “He’s just an amazing pilot and a great trainer and a national icon and–”

“Hey, Rhodey!” Tony yells over him. “Come here, meet Wilson!”

“Hey, what? No! Why would you do that?” Sam hisses.

Tony grins. “Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk.”

Rhodey (for lack of a better word) swaggers up to them, looking between the two of them. The beer is pretty clearly getting to him a little. “What’s up, Tone?”

“Rhodey, Wilson. Wilson, Rhodey.” Tony gestures between the two of them. Sam takes a hasty gulp of beer.

“Wilson,” Rhodey repeats.

“Samuel,” Sam says. “Or just Sam, Sam’s fine.”

“Sam, then.” Rhodey nods. “How’s it going, Sam?”

Sam rubs the back of his neck. “It’s alright. I’m just here with Steve and Natasha, but they’re off doing stuff…” He glances around the room for them. Steve is talking to Maria. Natasha is nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t act like you’re not welcome here,” Rhodey says. “We all know who you are. We know what you did.”

“What I did?” Sam’s brain immediately starts running through all the embarrassing things he could have done recently.

“In D.C.,” Tony mutters in his ear. “When you, y’know, saved the country and the world and stuff.”

Sam blinks. “Oh yeah, that. That happened.”

Tony winks at him and wanders off to talk to Pepper.

“That’s some pretty flying you got,” Rhodey says. “You got some skills in those wings. Almost as sweet as the suit.”

“Whoa whoa whoa, hey now,” Sam says, holding up one hand. “You got something to say against the wings?”

“No, ‘course not. The wings are a tech marvel, it’s a shame they canceled the program.” Rhodey raises his beer to his mouth and grins around the lip of the bottle. “But War Machine, man. You can’t deny that’s sexy.”

“You think your suit’s sexier than my wings?” Sam says. “You sure about that?”

Rhodey’s grin gets wider. “Pretty sure.”

“Well then,” Sam says. His heart is pounding in his chest. “I guess we’ll just have to see.”

“Are you challenging me?” Rhodey asks. He doesn’t sound angry at all; on the contrary, he seems delighted at the chance to take the armor out. “You wanna go right now?”

“Man, you’re drunk,” Sam says. “If I’m gonna beat you, then I want you to remember it.” He's also a little tipsy himself - he doesn't know if he would live down crashing head-first into a wall while Colonel Rhodes laughs himself out of the sky.

Rhodey scoffs and holds out a hand. “Next time, then. You’re on, Wilson.”

“Done deal, Colonel Rhodes.”

Rhodey shakes his hand and finishes his beer and goes off in search of another one. Sam waits until he’s out of earshot to let out a breath he’d been holding and punching the air as subtly as he can. Tony smirks at him from across the room.

The rest of the party is good. Natasha comes out of hiding and Sam hangs on her for a little while while she talks to Clint and Bruce; Steve spends most of his time alternatively arguing good-naturedly with Tony and cracking up over Rhodey; Pepper and Maria are off in a corner drinking wine together; Bruce looks like he’s meditating in the corner except for when he shovels bites of Chinese food into his mouth. Sam feels a pleasant buzz in his chest and he’s not sure where it’s coming from. His nervous energy is worked out through chips and a beer and a series of morbidly hilarious jokes from Natasha and now only vague excitement remains. He doesn’t know when he’ll get to fly with Rhodey, but the fact that the man agreed to it at all feels like a huge honor.The fact that he even knew of him makes him feel a little giddy.

Sam briefly thinks that he wishes he could tell Riley about meeting the infamous Colonel Rhodes, and then immediately banishes that thought with another one of Thor’s cookies.

As the night goes on, the various Avengers start to disperse and by the time Sam remembers to ask Rhodey  _when_  he wants to fly, Rhodey is gone.

 

After the party, Sam doesn’t hear from Rhodey for a while, and it starts to make him nervous. He convinces himself that he made the whole thing up until Steve gently reminds that neither he nor Rhodey are particularly quiet drunks and that half of the lounge heard his challenge. Sam feels his face flush as he apologizes, but Steve just laughs and reassures him that Rhodey is a good man who wouldn't mess with him too much.

Sam is just starting to believe that Rhodey is backing out of a drunk commitment he never intended to make when he gets a phone call from an unlisted number. “Hello?”

“Hey. Is this Wilson, Samuel, Sam?”

Sam closes his eyes tight and pinches the bridge of his nose as adrenaline jolts up his spine. “Yes, sir. Is this James Rupert Rhodes?”

There’s a pause on the other end, and then a muffled ‘that son of a bitch’. “Funny, Wilson.”

“I try. I’m the comic relief of the whole exposing HYDRA thing.”

“Don’t let Steve or Romanoff hear you say that,” Rhodey warns. “Or any of the rest of the team. Own up to the good you do.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“Hey, cut it out. I’m not your CO,” Rhodey says. “Keep the titles until I kick your ass out of the air.”

“Oh, you still on for that?” Sam tries to sound casual, but he's pretty sure he just ends up sounding overly excited instead.

“You know it. Any excuse to get the suit out. Kind of a bureaucratic nightmare to get it from of the armory.”

“What’d you do?” Sam asks. “You know, if it’s not too top secret or anything.”

“I’m officially running ‘training drills’,” Rhodey says. Sam can hear the air quotes over the phone. “So we’ll have a fighter jet on premise too.”

“You’re gonna take me on with a fighter jet?” Sam asks, completely failing to hide his excitement this time.

“Oh, no, I’m gonna take you on with the armor. Carol is gonna take you on with a fighter jet.”

“Carol?”

“Danvers,” Rhodey clarifies. “I’m sure you’ve heard of Colonel Carol Danvers.”

“No  _shit_ ,” Sam says for the second time in as many weeks.

Rhodey chuckles. “You know, it’s a nice change of pace to have someone get excited about the job. Hanging around superheroes is cool but you start to feel kinda tiny when they all save the world from aliens every other week and you’re just out there flying planes.”

“You’re not messing with me, right?” Sam asks. “Carol Danvers is coming? Actual Colonel Carol Danvers?”

“And she’s gonna kick your ass even harder than me,” Rhodey confirms. “I hope you like jet fumes because you’re gonna be eating a lot of them.”

Sam’s entire body feels like it’s shaking as he asks, “What time?”

“We booked the little military airfield in D.C. for the thirteenth at ten hundred hours. Does that work for you?”

“Hell yes it works for me,” Sam says, already mentally rearranging his schedule.

“Good. We’ll see you in a week, then, Wilson.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam says without thinking.

Rhodey laughs again. “Enough with the ‘sir’. Let me at least earn it first.”

He hangs up and Sam stands in the kitchen, staring at his cell phone for a moment, and then does a most undignified victory dance.

 

“Wilson, this is Colonel Carol Danvers,” Rhodey says. “Fighter pilot extraordinaire.”

“Nice to meet you,” Carol says cheerfully, holding out a hand.

Sam stares up at her as he takes her hand and shakes it. “Yeah. Yeah, same.”

Rhodey leans over to whisper in Carol’s ear. “He gets starstruck sometimes.”

Sam wrinkles his nose and resists the urge to stick his tongue out.

“Starstruck, huh?” Carol repeats. “You must be Air Force, then. No one else gets starstruck over pilots like us.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sam says. “Fifty-eighth pararescue. Retired a few years ago.”

Carol nods approvingly as she looks Sam up and down. She’s much taller than him and her eyes are piercing. He feels like he’s under inspection again. “Very nice. You want to show me what those wings can do?”

Sam grins. “Hell yeah I do.” He zips up his old combat jacket, puts on his flying goggles, and straps his new wing pack - thank you, Stark Industries - onto his back. "Are you ready to see something beautiful?"

Rhodey and Carol glance at each other with little matching smiles and then Carol nods at Sam. "Wow us."

Sam takes a breath and tries not to feel like he's back in training, when he and Riley and the rest of their class were standing in a nervous line, waiting to get evaluated.

He takes another deep breath and holds it in his lungs.

He takes a running start.

He reaches his arms out to the sides and the wings extend out behind him. His fingers slip into the grips.

The three jet engines roar and warm his skin even though the kevlar back protector.

Sam kicks off the ground and the sky rushes up to meet him.

He can think of no better feeling in the world than being in the air. The wings don’t do very well at hovering, but they’re great at speed. Sam aims his way up into the air, metal flaps trailing behind him, and then cuts power for a second and lets himself fall backwards. He dives until he sees the ground and then the wings spread open again and he skims along the cracked pavement of the airfield. The tips of the wings catch the ground every now and then and draw sparks, but they’re more durable than his old ones. The old EXO-7s were designed for sand and dirt - these are made for New York.

He pulls up and does a couple of barrel rolls just because he can, and then loops high up in the sky and carefully touches down back in front of Rhodey and Carol, perhaps a little bit harder than he means to.

Carol and Rhodey both have their arms crossed, and Sam feels even more like he’s back in evaluations.

“That,” Rhodey says finally, “Is a fine-ass piece of machinery.”

Sam’s face splits into a grin. “Yeah, man. Especially since Stark got his hands on them. The turn radius is amazing now, and then jets last way longer.”

Carol uncrosses her arms and circles around him to look at the plating of the wings. “What’s it made out of?”

“These ones are made from nanofibers,” Sam says. “Lighter and thinner than the originals. Helps with sustained flight and it’s easier to fold back up.”

Carol nods. “Fold them up?”

Sam presses the button and the wings flutter behind him as they retract into their case. The case hisses, and then clicks as the latches swing into place. Now, instead of freeing, it just feels like carrying a heavy backpack.

Carol whistles low. “That’s some tech, Wilson. It’s a shame the USAF discontinued them.”

Sam nods. “It’s not especially safe, I guess. We lost some men on these. They get the job done, but it’s high risk.”

“I suppose full armor would make those tight turns hard.” Carol raps on the case with her knuckles. “Pop them again?”

Sam complies and the wings unsheath themselves again. He feels the stiff plates dip a little as Carol runs her hands over them and feels incredibly self-conscious.

“If I couldn’t make turns so tight in a plane, I’d be jealous,” Carol says.

“Yeah? Let’s see it,” Sam replies.

Carol chuckles. “You want to see me hand your ass to you?”

Sam scoffs, but he’s grinning.

“No, really,” Rhodey says, leaning over Sam’s shoulder. “She’s gonna wipe the floor with you.”

“You sweet talker, you,” Carol says affectionately, and then she climbs into her jet. Sam and Rhodey retreat to the edge of the air strip and cover their ears as she straps in the plane and hooks up her helmet. Sam can see her radio in through the window of the plane, and then the engines rumble to life. Carol taxis the plane until it’s facing straight down the runway and then shoots forward.

USAF jets are definitely faster than the used to be, Sam realizes, because Carol is suddenly in the air already, flying straight out and then looping around and flying back toward them. Rhodey digs around in his pocket for earplugs and hands Sam a pair. Sam takes them gratefully and stuffs them in his ears as Carol zooms by overhead.

“Who the hell is building these?” Sam yells over the noise.

“Top secret,” Rhodey shouts back. “But aren’t the engines beautiful?”

"What?"

Rhodey waves a hand and points at the sky. Sam looks up just in time to see Carol do a triple barrel roll and a full backwards loop before taking off away from the field again.

Sam whistles low. "Those are some sexy moves she's got."

"You don't know the half of it," Rhodey says.

"Oh yeah?" Sam raises his eyebrows. "You and her...?"

"Oh yeah," Rhodey replies. He looks incredibly smug.

"Y'all are like the Air Force power couple, then," Sam says.

"Wouldn't be the first time someone's said that."

"You're awful pleased with yourself."

Rhodey grins at him. "Like you wouldn't be."

There's a loud crackle of static on the loudspeakers and then Carol's voice echoes out around the airfield. "Colonel Rhodes, if you would care to join me?"

Rhodey salutes the plane as it flies over them, then leans down and opens the big case he had been carrying earlier. He sheds his USAF jacket to reveal a slim, long-sleeved undershirt, and steps onto the case. “You’re gonna want to watch this.”

Sam steps back and Rhodey presses a button on the case’s base and suddenly, long, thin metal arms erupt out of the contents, carrying individual pieces of armor with them. The spindly arms build the armor up to Rhodey, screwing him in and latching everything in place while he stands on top of it. Once the body armor is finished, Rhodey steps off and picks up the helmet. The top slides open as he puts it on and then everything clicks into place and the eyes illuminate themselves.

Sam is pretty sure his mouth is hanging open. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah, man.” The armor has a deeper, more metallic voice than Rhodey. It sounds kind of like Tony’s Iron Man armor, but more commanding than cocky. “This is a prototype case, so if this suit falls apart in the air, you come catch me, okay?”

“Hey, I don’t think–”

“You fly up and you catch me,” Rhodey repeats.

“Yes, sir.”

Rhodey claps him on the shoulder with a gauntleted hand. Sam holds back a wince and hopes that he won’t bruise.

“You watch this, now.” Rhodey takes a couple steps back and the thrusters in his gauntlets and boots kick on. Like Carol, he rises slowly, and then suddenly takes off, shooting straight up into the air. Sam watches him shrink into a tiny dot, trailed by bright streams of light. The jet rushes by overhead and Rhodey changes course so that he can fly alongside it.

The jet bobs a little and rolls over Rhodey. Sam flinches and waits for the shower of sparks and metal debris he expects to come from a collision, but it never happens. Carol just rolls the jet around Rhodey and then pulls up to make a big loop. Rhodey follows her easily, just out of the range of the engine exhaust, weaving in and out of the smoke trail like a dance. He chases her across the sky, then peels off to hover, about a hundred feet off the ground.

Carol’s voice booms from the speakers. “Come on up, Wilson.”

“Yes ma’am,” Sam says to himself with a grin.

He takes his running start and his wings spread open for him and he leaps into the air as the jets kick into gear and he’s soaring again. Rhodey flies down to meet him and playfully dodges around Sam as Sam tries to gain some altitude.

“Don’t mess with me, man!” Sam yells over the engine’s roar.

Rhodey comes to a leisurely hover next to him. “I thought you were gonna kick our asses.”

The fact that the wing pack still can’t hover very well causes Sam to slip and drop a few yards before he catches himself again. He thinks he can hear the armor’s metallic laugher as Rhodey drops down next to him again.

“C’mon, Wilson, shape up. You got a plane to catch.”

As if on schedule, the rumbling of engine turbines comes to life. Sam turns around just in time to see a jet coming straight at him. He shouts and swears and dives one way and the jet dives the other, and there’s the adrenaline high. Sam is suddenly aware of all the parts of his body that almost got destroyed in a plane crash and, without even thinking about it, he’s chasing after Carol, streaking through the sky in the trail of smoke from her engines.

Carol teases him for a while, doing loops in the air when he falls behind but never letting him quite catch up to her wings. She has two jet engines at her disposal and Sam just has his jet thrusters. It’s not a particularly fair competition.

Rhodey drifts along after them, looking as smug as it’s possible for expressionless armor to look. He holds out his hand to high five Sam once as Sam darts past him in pursuit of jets and Sam ignores him, mostly in the interest of saving his own hand bones. Rhodey seems delighted anyway, and lets out a metallic cheer when Sam finally catches himself on the tail end of Carol’s jet during a sharp turn.

Riding on a plane wing is very, very scary and Sam instantly regrets it. To save them from the wind, he had folded his wings back up for the moment. He knows that he can take off at any time and fly away, but the turbines are sucking backwards from underneath the wings of the jet, enough to be noticeable. The few inches of bare skin he has are getting badly windburned. “Rhodes!” he yells at nothing. “Shit!”

Rhodey appears along the side of the plane, watching Sam grip the side of the plane as tightly as possible. “Kick off,” the armor commands. “Open your wings and jump upwards. You’ll be fine.”

Sam opens the wings and immediately feels the drag dig the straps into his shoulders. He takes a deep breath and then, like Rhodey said, kicks off of the plane and engages his own jets. For one split second, he feels himself being pulled down, but that split second lasts forever and ever until the jet’s pull escapes him and Sam can let out the gasp of breath he’d been holding.

He floats as best as he can, unevenly over three or four feet and constantly moving forward, as Rhodey loops the plane and then takes his place behind the starboard wing. Sam hears muffled laughter over the loudspeakers.

The iron armor is harder to shake than a man in combats so Rhodey rides the plane before he hops off and lands into the floor. He signals at Carol, who starts flying back toward the end of the runway, and then at Sam, who immediately starts drifting to the ground. Sam touches down first and Rhodey is there to catch him as he stumbles forward a few paces and his wings fold up again.

“That was fucking scary,” Sam says between huge gulps of breath. “That was terrifying. How can you do that?”

Rhodey pops the face plate of the helmet. Sam can see that he’s been sweating a little. “Knowing that you won’t die if you slip is good. The suit's strong like that, and I could engage even if I fell. Other than that, it’s just practice.”

“You practice hitching rides on plane wings now in the Air Force?” Sam asks.

“It’s been a while since you were in the Air Force,” Rhodey says solemnly. “The training regimens have gotten some updates.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Yeah, I am,” Rhodey replies. He looks cheerful. Sam’s glad one of them is.

Behind them, the jet runs into the ground and wheels to a stop. Carol takes off her helmet and sweeps her hair out of her face as she opens the plane and climbs out. Her face looks a little green, but she’s grinning brightly. “You like that, Wilson?”

“You’re an amazing pilot,” Sam says earnestly. “And I need to see about getting my jet thrusters improved. You go damn fast, Colonel Danvers.”

“Carol. And yes, I do. It’s loads more fun like that.”

Carol’s smile is infectious. Sam can’t help but return it.

“Don’t sell yourself short, though, Sam. You’re pretty good yourself,” Rhodey says.

Sam glows with the praise. “Thank you, sir.”

“Still not your CO. Stop calling me 'sir'.”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“Come on, boys.” Carol lays a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “If Wilson's done freaking out, we only have the airfield for a couple hours before actual training sessions start. We should make the most of it.”

Rhodey salutes her, but it looks almost comical with the armor.

“And try not to scare Wilson to death, James. It’s hell getting the paramedics out here.”

Rhodey says “I did not!” at the same time Sam says “ _Hey!_ ” Carol grins and puts her helmet back on.

“What do you say, Wilson?” Rhodey asks. The armor's faceplate closes and latches into place again. “Back into the skies?”

“Back into the skies,” Sam agrees.

Rhodey shoots off into the air again and Sam spreads his wings and speeds off after him to the tune of the revving of jet engines.


	2. Chapter 2

“So,” Carol says.

They’re having lunch at a Five Guys just outside of Washington DC after an actual training session - just the three of them, not with any of the rest of the Avengers. (Sam has started training with the Avengers and Tony loves working on his wings to near-fetish levels. They haven’t run any actual missions with him yet - the world hasn’t really tried to end since HYDRA launched the Project Insight helicarriers - but as Steve says, it’s always good to be prepared.)

Still, every weekend, or every other weekend if they’re all busy, one of Rhodey or Carol picks Sam up in some new flashy military vehicle and they head to the airfield and fly. Sam loves flying with Carol and Rhodey. The Avengers are great, and those who can fly are good at it, but they all use it as a means to an end. They fly to get places and to get the jump on enemies and get better vantage points. Carol and Rhodey fly to be in the air, and that’s what Sam loves the most about them.

“So?” Sam prompts as he takes a bite of his burger.

“So,” Rhodey echoes.

“So,” Carol says in a very deep voice.

“So.” Rhodey does his best falsetto.

Carol cracks up into her soda.

“Okay, no, but really, so?” Sam asks. “So what?”

“Sooo…” Carol draws out the word. “It’s getting on toward the end of March.”

“Right. Okay?”

“And as you know, toward the end of March, there’s a certain charity ball for a certain faction of the United States military,” Carol says. “Which James and I are, unfortunately, required to go to.”

Sam winces in sympathy. “Aw, man, that sucks, I’m sorry.”

“You ever been to an Air Force charity ball?” Rhodey asks.

“Nope. Never got the chance.”

“It’s actually pretty fun,” Rhodey says.

“Lots of booze,” Carol adds.

“Plenty of dancing, if you’re into that.”

“Decent music too.”

“A good night to be had by all.”

“We want you to come with us.”

“You– I’m sorry, what?” Sam says. “You what?”

“We want you to come with us to the charity ball,” Carol repeats. “You don’t need to get your mess back out since you’re a civilian, technically. Just a tux is fine.”

“I don’t even have a tux, and why do you want me to come with you?” Sam asks. “I retired years ago.”

Carol and Rhodey look at each other and shrug. “‘Cause it’d be fun,” Rhodey says eventually. “We think so, at least.”

“How would you even get me in?”

“We still get plus ones for some reason. You’d be Carol’s.”

“I can taste the national scandal already,” Carol says irreverently. Rhodey smiles at her fondly.

“So? Do you want to come? We’ll pick you up and everything.”

“Why though?” Sam asks again. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, I just don’t get it.”

Carol sighs a little through her nose. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Sam, but James and I do actually like spending time with you.”

“I– oh,” Sam says. “Oh.”

“Yes, _oh_ ,” Carol says teasingly. “So, at the risk of sounding repetitive: Sam Wilson, would you like to come to the Air Force charity ball with us?”

“I mean yeah, definitely, if you can figure out how to get me in,” Sam says. He feels pleasantly warm all over. “I’d have to rent a suit since all mine are kind of crap, but–”

“Ask Pepper,” Rhodey suggests. “She’s fond of causes that aren’t lost.”

Carol laughs brightly. Sam feels himself smile.

“We’ll mail you a proper invitation,” she says. “I mean, we’ll give you all the details, but if you want to show off, we’ll send you a proper invitation.”

“I don’t think I know anybody who would be impressed.”

Rhodey gives him a little grin. “Their loss.”

Carol finishes her soda and tosses the cup into the bin across from their booth. “Come on, let’s hit the road. Traffic on the I-95 is probably awful again.”

Rhodey holds up his burger. “I’m not finished yet.”

Carol reaches into his pocket and digs out the keys to the really rather sexy car they drove in with. “Then I’ll just have to drive, won’t I?”

“Shotgun,” Sam says, cramming the last bite of burger into his mouth.

Rhodey aims a none-too-gentle kick at his shin under the table.

 

Two weeks, a fancy invitation in the mail, and three days of increasingly frantic suit shopping later, Sam is pacing around the living room, waiting for Carol and Rhodey to pick him up. He’s clicking a pen that Natasha gave him and Sam thinks that it’s probably driving her and Steve crazy, but they don’t say anything and he’s grateful for it. They were the ones who finally dragged him to department store after department store to find an actual suit to wear. Steve and Natasha have much better taste than Sam gave them credit for.

His phone goes off almost at the same time as a horn sounds outside the house. Sam nearly jumps and scrambles to get his phone out of his pocket. “Hello?”

“As you may have already heard,” Rhodey’s voice says on the other end. “We’re here.”

“Okay. Okay, cool. I’ll be out in a second.”

Rhodey hangs up without saying anything else. Sam grabs his jacket from the back of the chair it was hanging over and shoves his phone back into his pocket. He ducks down to look at himself in the reflection of the window and straightens his bow tie a little.

“You look fine, Sam,” Natasha calls from the couch.

“Uh huh.”

“Seriously,” Steve adds. “You look great. Just go. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Okay. This’ll be fine.” Sam pulls the jacket on and buttons the top button. “Haven’t done anything with the Air Force in a while but it’ll be fine.”

“Yes it will,” Natasha says. “Now _go_. Have a good time. Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do.”

“Surprisingly unhelpful,” Sam shoots back, and then he heads out.

They’re taking Carol’s car tonight - an unassuming grey sedan, nice enough to get then to Springfield but not enough to stand out. Sam wonders if she thought of that as he slides into the back seat.

“Good evening, Wilson,” Rhodey says pleasantly from the passenger’s seat.

“Hey. Hey, Carol.”

“Hi,” Carol says brightly as she puts her car into drive and takes off down Sam’s street. “You look all nice tonight.”

“Thanks. I hope it’s, you know, acceptable. I haven’t done a military event in ages, and when I did, I had mess.”

“It’s not terribly flattering,” Rhodey admits. “Army’s nicer.”

“Oh, come on, you look great in mess,” Carol says. “Not as nice as me, with my giant long skirt from the early nineteen hundreds, but still nice.”

Sam laughs. Rhodey tries to glare at her, but his amusement wins out.

Springfield is only about twenty miles from Sam’s house, so it takes them less than forty-five minutes to get there. There’s valet parking, so Carol leaves her car with them and the three of them walk up the hill to the entrance of the Waterford. There are people streaming in and out of the entrance as Carol checks them all in at the front, and then Rhodey ushers them into the main hall.

Sam can’t help but stare as he weaves through throngs of officers and guests. “God, there are a ton of people here.”

“Yep,” Carol says on his left.

“God, and I don’t know any of them!”

“Nope,” Rhodey says on his right.

“You guys are enjoying this,” Sam hisses.

“Yep,” they chime in unison. Sam resists the urge to elbow them both in the sides.

“Just smile and look pretty,” Carol murmurs as Rhodey gets immediately called away to talk to someone. “You don’t need to make any speeches or be in any photo ops or give any interviews about–” she adopts a fake news announcer voice “–the ‘current state of affairs in United States domestic security’. Just go have fun. Drink some wine. Dance with people.”

“Dance with people,” Sam repeats to himself. “Can I dance with you?”

Carol looks down at him with an affectionate little smile. “Sure, if you want. You could dance with anyone.”

“I’ll take you up on that,” Sam says. He pauses for a moment, then asks, “ _Anyone_? Could I dance with Rhodey?”

Carol’s smile fades quickly and she glances around them at the crowd. “I’m not sure that would be a very good idea.”

“Oh,” Sam says. “It's okay, it was just a joke.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Carol continues anyway. “It’s nothing to do with you, but they’re all connected with the AFOSC and they’re… rather conservative.”

“The AFOSC?”

“It’s a club for people married to Air Force officers,” Carol explains. “They’re mostly women and mostly getting on in years and there are lots of photographers here and it would just be a really bad idea, Sam. Do you get what I’m saying?”

Sam nods.

“It really doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Carol says gently. “I promise. The media is terrible but it’s here and we have to work around that. James’s public image is even more important than mine, what with the Iron Patriot suit. He has to keep up appearances for your team’s sake as well as his own.”

“For the Avengers? What does he have to do with the Avengers.”

Carol eyes him skeptically. “Surely you don’t think the military engineered that suit on its own, do you?”

“Well, no, obviously not,” Sam backtracks. “But that was a trade and it was years ago. Is Rhodey like the military’s liaison to the Avengers now?”

“In some ways,” Carol says. “Everyone knows he’s friends with Tony, and he's run a few missions with them - low profile targets, high chance of success. Good publicity for both of us, everyone wins.”

“I don’t remember having to be this calculating when I was serving,” Sam says.

“Be glad you never made it to Colonel, then, because it takes all the fun out of everything.”

“Colonel Danvers!” A loud voice booms out behind them. Sam and Carol whirl around at the same time, startled. A tall man with white hair and a weathered face and a thick moustache stands in front of them, hand extended. Carol takes it immediately and shakes it.

“Major General Copeland! Lovely to see you,” she says. Her serious expression from three seconds ago is gone, replaced by a winning smile. Sam is impressed at her ability to switch so fast.

“And you, Carol, as always.” Copeland looks at Sam. “What happened to James?”

Carol waves a hand toward the crowd. “Oh, he’s in there somewhere. I’m sure you’ll see him sometime tonight. This,” she gestures at Sam, “is our friend Sam Wilson. Retired pararescue and current world-saver.”

“Sir,” Sam says, inclining his head in greeting.

Copeland shakes his hand too. “Sam Wilson, huh? Any relation to the Sam Wilson from that SHIELD battle last year?”

“Yes sir, one and the same,” Sam says.

“Well then! Technically, we’re to remain neutral on the matter, pending that investigation that’s still somehow going on,” Copeland says. He leans in and Sam resists the urge to lean away. “But between you and me, you did a hell of a job there, knocking those Nazi bastards out.”

Sam nods. “Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t mention it,” Copeland says pleasantly. “Seriously. And Carol, do let me know next time you see Colonel Rhodes, alright?”

“I will,” Carol promises. Copeland wanders off into the crowd and Carol breathes a sigh of relief.

“Sorry. He’s one of three generals here tonight. The other two are Brigadier, so they’re not as scary and they have less moustache.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Sam deadpans.

He’s rescued from Carol’s reply as a tray of champagne glasses is presented to them. Carol and Sam each take one, and then the waiter scurries away. Sam raises his glass up to Carol. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” she echoes, and they clink their glasses together and drink deeply.

“God, that’s nice champagne,” Carol groans appreciatively.

“Bless the Air Force,” Sam agrees sagely. “Let’s go find Rhodey.”

Rhodey ends up being trapped in conversation by two AFOSC members. They look almost disappointed when Carol and Sam come up to them, squeezing out of the crowd.

“There you are, James,” Carol says brightly. “We were wondering where you were.” She leans over and kisses Rhodey quickly, then takes another sip of champagne. Rhodey looks quite pleased.

“Colonel Danvers, lovely to see you again,” one of the women says. She shakes Carol’s hand and gives her a warm smile. “We’re delighted that you managed to make it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Carol replies. “Someone’s gotta keep James in check for his speech.”

The two women laugh and Rhodey wrinkles his nose at Carol when they’re not looking.

“And who might this be?” the other woman asks.

“This is our friend, Sam Wilson,” Rhodey says. “He used to be Air Force. He’s retired now. Sam, these are about a fifth of the head AFOSC board, Erin and Janet.”

“Ma’am,” Sam says politely as they offer their hands in turn.

“Retired, hmm?” One of them – Erin – says. “What did you do?”

“I was a pararescue,” Sam explains. “Two tours in Afghanistan.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Janet says. “We need more men like you, Mr… Or, what was your ranking?”

Sam frowns a little. “'Mr.' is fine. I left. I’m not Air Force anymore.”

“Oh, we take all kinds,” Janet says in what must be her advertising voice. “The AFOSC is open to the families of all Air force officers, currently enlisted or not.”

“Okay, but I’m not–”

“Oh, Janet, the Waterford looks amazing tonight!” Carol says, too loudly. “We just got here, would you mind showing us around?”

Janet and Erin beam at her. “Of course, Colonel, we’d be delighted,” one of them says. “Come on, I’ll show you the auction items!”

Carol steers them off toward the other end of the ballroom. Rhodey mouths ‘good luck’ to Sam as he gets dragged after them, leaving Sam alone in the crowd.

He goes off in search of more champagne.

Over the course of the evening, Sam is assaulted by no fewer than eight people who recognize him from the Triskelion Battle and congratulate and thank him for his service and his efforts against HYDRA. He also sees, just out of the corner of his eye, several others staring at him with the sort of hard-faced blankness that conveys something resembling fury. Sam takes it into stride. It’s not the first time he’s felt unwelcome at an event, and the fall of SHIELD is still a hotly divisive topic, both on Capitol Hill and in the military. Even with the investigation promising to end soon, public and political opinions are still split.

Sam doesn’t really mind. He and Steve and Natasha had all sat down together once Natasha came back and Sam made them talk about what happened, for his own peace of mind. He doesn’t regret what they had to do, and neither do Steve or Natasha, so that’s good enough for him.

Still, it’s incredibly strange, being stopped by men who would rank far above him, if he were still an officer, and told what an honor it is to meet him. Carol and Rhodey are both off doing press and making their appearances count, so he has no buffer to fend people off and nowhere to escape to when someone finally leaves him alone. The inside of his cheek feels a little raw from biting at it in between polite answers; his fingertips tingle a little from rubbing against the material of the suit pants. He wishes there weren’t so many people here.

The sound of chairs scraping against the floor fills the room and suddenly, Carol is by his side. He grabs onto her arm without thinking, but she doesn’t protest. She just leads him through the mob of people to one of the small tables toward the front of the dining area. Carol makes Sam sit down, then sits next to him and silently offers him her hand. Sam takes it gratefully and squeezes it tight.

“Where’s Rhodey?”

Carol nods up at the stage, and Sam realizes that Rhodey is shuffling around behind a podium, repeatedly glancing at a small piece of paper. Two AFOSC members are up there too, speaking to each other in low voices and pointing at things across the room.

“Poor guy,” Sam says. “Charity speeches are the worst.”

Carol nods. “I know, seriously. I had to do one the year I was promoted. I’m glad I got help writing it, because I never know what to say. ‘Hello, I’m Carol, I’m the only woman you’ve promoted to Colonel this year, please give me money’.”

Sam chuckles. “That’s basically it.”

“I wrote two speeches for the dinner,” Carol says. “One of them was the one I wanted to give and the other was the one I had to read instead. The one I had to read was alright, but the one I wrote was great.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep.” Carol adopts a cheerful, crowd-pleasing voice. “‘I’d like to thank all the generals for coming out tonight, and hey, they’re all men! How about all you Brigadiers take that extra twenty-three cents on the dollar you make more than me and donate it to the Air Force?’”

Sam grins. “Damn, that’s harsh. I wish you could have kept it in.”

“Trust me, Wilson, I wish I could have too.”

Someone taps a knife against a glass and the conversation fades out across the room. One of the AFOSC members on stage steps up and adjusts the microphone. “Settle down, everyone. Settle down. Before we start dinner tonight, we have a wonderful speaker to welcome you all to this year’s Air Force charity ball. I’m sure you all know him, so please give a warm welcome to Colonel James Rhodes!”

The room breaks out into applause as she steps back and Rhodey comes up to take her place. He slides his paper on the podium and adjusts the microphone again so he doesn’t have to lean down too much. Sam glances back at Carol; she’s looking up at Rhodey, smiling a little to herself. She looks proud to see him up there. Rhodey clears his throat a little and the applause dies away.

“Yes, hello, good evening. Good evening to all the officers, spouses, sponsors, and everyone else who came out tonight. Nice to see some old faces again. Like Mrs. Edelstein said, I’m Colonel James Rhodes. I’ve been in the Air Force since I graduated from MIT, back in nineteen eighty-nine. I’ve seen the military change and grow in that time, just as I’ve seen this charity ball change and grow. Now, I know that we’re all excited for the dinner, and for good reason. Catering is, as usual, flawless. So I just want to take a moment to thank you all for coming and talk a little bit about what we’re doing here tonight.

“The world, as you all know, is in a constant state of change. New threats are emerging every day. Old ones are coming back. A few years ago, we had to face an enemy that we never thought we’d have to face. These days, we have to be ready fast, and we have to be ready now, because we don’t always know what’s going to come at us. And that’s what makes the men and women who serve in our armed forces so important. They’re laying down the line and defending us with their lives to keep this country a safe place for us to live.

“Now, as you all know, some of our peacekeepers are gone. Last year’s battle in Washington DC exposed a lot of internal danger, a lot of security breaks in our country that we didn’t even realize were there. We may have felt less safe when they shut down. But I believe that that break has inspired a new generation of young men and women to join forces with the United States and help take down these enemy forces. Our recruitment numbers are higher than they have been in years. Our training facilities are constantly being improved. Our technology has been advancing and our service members are safer than they’ve ever been. The tragedy last year was a massive blow to our country and the safety of our people, but we are bouncing back from that even stronger.

“As always, we are looking to support our men and women in uniform here on the ground with this Charity Ball. For over ten years, the Air Force Officers’ Spouses Club has worked with us and the AFAS to ensure that returning Air Force members get the help that they need and that those still oversees are taken care of. And…” Rhodey goes quiet for a second, then clears his throat again. “I want to draw attention especially to those of our officers who are retired or discharged or grounded for whatever reason. The last few years have been… traumatic, I guess, is a good way to say it. We have all had to face things that we shouldn’t have to face, and I can promise you that it hasn’t been easy. I personally have seen a lot of things since the Invasion of New York that I never thought I would have to see. And it’s hard. I’m not going to pretend it isn’t. Knowing all these things about the dangers we have to face is hard, and I just want to make sure that we all pay our respects and our dues to our brothers and sisters who gave their lives or their bodies or their minds and years of their time to helping us to fight these fights. It’s not an easy burden to bear, and it’s a mark of true resilience, in my opinion, to step back and say ‘enough’ when you know you’ve had enough.”

Sam’s chest feels tight and he rubs at his eyes with the back of his hand to stave off the burning feeling behind them. Carol rests one hand on his back and presses her forehead to his shoulder for just a second.

“So,” Rhodey continues. “When you’re donating tonight, please keep our veterans in your thoughts as well. Speaking of, there’s the usual silent auction, with a whole host of great prizes up for bidding. I have a– I have a list, should I read it now?”

One of the AFOSC members shakes her head and says something inaudible.

“Okay, I’m being told after dinner. I’ll leave that to the people running this party. But yes, there’s the auction, and there are also stations where you can donate if you have the opportunity, and some fabulous AFAS members here to help you decide where you want your donations to be going. A portion of all the proceeds tonight will be going toward paying for this wonderful party, and then the rest is going straight to your men and women in uniform.

“I don’t want to hold the party up too much longer, so I’ll just say again, thank you all so much for coming out. Your time and your contributions are, as always, so appreciated, and I’m grateful that we have such a good turnout this year. So, thank you for your time, and let’s all have a good night tonight.”

There’s a long beat of silence, and then the applause starts again, thunderously loud this time. Sam claps so hard that his hands hurt, and he resists the urge to stand up because he doesn’t want to draw too much attention to himself, but really what he wants to do is take Rhodey aside and give him a hug and thank him.

“He’s a good speaker,” Carol says. “Always has been.”

“Yeah,” Sam says quietly. “Yeah, he really is.”

Rhodey shakes some hands on his way down, and then hurries to his seat next to Carol. She leans over and whispers something to him, and he whispers something back and kisses her. Sam averts his eyes, instead choosing to watch the catering team, which is now sweeping around the room with trays and carts and plates full of food and what Carol and Rhodey are saying doesn’t have to matter anymore.

Rhodey was correct in that the catering is amazing. Whoever the AFOSC hired has really outdone themselves. Sam is content to mostly just sit and eat and let Carol and Rhodey’s easy conversation drift around him. It’s a much-needed break and it allows him to center himself again. He’d almost forgotten why he hates going to Air Force events. Far too much stimulation.

As the catering staff clears the last round of plates, Carol reaches over and tugs on Sam’s sleeve. “Hey Sam, dinner’s done.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. So you want to go dance?”

“Um… Should I?”

“Yeah, why not?” Carol says. “It’ll be fun.”

“Are you sure that won’t… Get you into trouble?”

Carol rolls her eyes. “Nah, of course not. It’s a party, you dance with people at parties. I’m absolutely sure James isn’t going to just trail me around and try to defend my honor when someone asks me to dance with them.”

“Well, now that you mention it–” Rhodey cuts in.

Carol presses a finger to his lips and turns back to Sam. “You don’t have to, but I think it will be fun. And you did ask earlier, I thought maybe you still wanted to.”

“No, I do! I do still want to,” Sam says. “I just wasn’t sure if you should, you know?”

Carol’s smile is warm and it makes Sam’s stomach tighten. “I’d like to see them try and stop me.”

She takes Sam’s hand, pulls him out of his chair, and drags him off toward the ballroom. Sam glances back at Rhodey, but Rhodey just grins and waves as they get swallowed up by the crowd.

Some sort of soft piano music that Sam doesn’t recognize drifts out around the ballroom as Carol leads him in. The ballroom is significantly emptier than the dining hall - only about a dozen or so couples are on the dance floor already, and a dozen more are floating around the edges, sipping champagne and talking quietly to each other. Carol bypasses the outskirts of officers and partners and leads Sam straight onto the dance floor. She slips her arm around Sam’s back and Sam rests his hand on her shoulder and she sweeps him around until they’re swaying in time with the music.

“Saw you getting accosted out there,” Carol says. “Are you doing okay?”

Sam nods. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just a lot. It’s pretty overwhelming.”

“Yeah, Air Force events are like that, especially when someone is hot shit like you,” Carol teases. “Were you regaled as a national hero?”

“By some people,” Sam admits. “A lot of people thanked me for DC. Some people didn’t seem happy about it, but…”

Carol shrugs her free shoulder. “Whatever. You know you did the right thing and we know you did the right thing. Don’t worry about the assholes who want to shut you all down. They’re in the minority.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sam leans his forehead against Carol’s chin. “It’s just weird, you know? That people still recognize me. Back when I was active, most people didn’t know me. I never had to do…” He gestures at the slowly filling ballroom. “This.”

Carol nods. “It takes some getting used to, to be sure. Once I made it clear that I was going to keep climbing the ranks, people started recognizing me, and let me tell you, it’s a weird feeling to have generals come up to you and know your name outside of work.” She smiles down at him again. “Not as weird as being a national hero, I’m sure, but still weird.”

Sam nods to himself and lets Carol lead him around the room. The soft piano song ends for something a little faster and jazzier. He leans into her chest. Her arm is tight around his side.

Sam doesn’t see Rhodey appear until he’s speaking, one hand on the small of Sam’s back and the other on Carol’s arm. Carol lets Sam go and Sam takes a step back automatically. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Rhodey turns to look at him. “I said the silent auction is starting. I just read the list off.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think there’s anything you’d want there, but if you want to look…”

Sam shakes his head. “Nah. I don’t need anything.”

“Fair enough,” Rhodey says pleasantly. “Would you mind, then, if I cut in?”

“Oh. Yeah, no, sure, go ahead.” Sam steps back again and makes a little sweeping gesture. “Be my guest.”

“You’re too kind,” Rhodey says teasingly. Carol winks and pulls Rhodey close. He’s even shorter than Sam, so the height discrepancy between him and Carol looks a little silly, but they fit together so well that Sam doesn’t think that anyone will particularly notice. He watches them for a moment, then turns and slips out of the crowd and misses the way they both turn to watch him go.

Sam keeps to the sides of the hall, sips at water instead of booze, and politely declines invitations to dance from people he hasn’t been introduced to yet. He does accept from a couple of people he met earlier in the evening, but he’s not that good at leading and he doesn’t really know what to say beyond “how has your evening been” and “so what does your husband do”, so they’re all short lived conversations. Sam does feel a little bad, but he’s terribly out of his element here. His forte is helping people, getting into serious matters and working through them, not making small talk with strangers who paid two hundred fifty dollars to eat dinner and bid on a spa weekend. He doesn’t care that they do, but he doesn’t know how to move his limbs or school his face to be acceptable to them.

He wants to find a quiet place.

A song ends and the pretty woman with sharp eyes and dark hair and an E-7 ranking who had asked him to dance - her name was Rosa - winks at him and pulls away to go do… something else, Sam doesn’t know what, but suddenly Carol is there, immediately sliding into her place. Sam starts, but then settles again, holding tight to Carol’s hand when she offers it.

“You look like you’ve had enough,” she says gently.

Sam shrugs. “It’s a lot. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I thought you were Mr. Charm.”

“This really isn’t my area,” Sam says.

“That's okay. James and I are basically done here anyway. They tried to talk me into reading auction winners, but I can’t tell you how much I don’t want to do that.”

“I would guess a lot.”

“So much,” Carol agrees. “ _So_ much.”

Sam laughs.

“But yeah, we’re nearly ready to go if you want. We took our pictures and looked very nice and formal and groveled for our COs and I don’t know about you, but I’m really excited to get out of this skirt and into a pair of jeans.”

“Yes, I’m also excited to get out of my skirt,” Sam says.

Carol butts her chin against his head. “Smartass.”

“Where’s Rhodey?”

“Ass-kissing for the AFAS,” Carol says. “Trying to get more funding for the Iron Patriot program. Of course, Tony could just dump a few million dollars into it, but the military likes to look like they know what they’re doing. It’s all appearances.”

“I thought Tony already funded Iron Patriot.”

“Not really? Obviously he funded the initial suit, since he invented it, and Rhodey doesn’t trust anyone else to do mechanical upgrades on it.”

“Just mechanical upgrades?” Sam asks.

“There’s a certain amount of third party weaponry in there,” Carol says. “Tony makes the suit function. Everyone else just makes stuff go boom.”

“What champions,” Sam deadpans.

“Yeah, pretty much. The military isn’t really that good at doing morality checks for our weapons developers. We had that asshole, Justin Hammer, in a few years ago. That was a mistake.”

“I’m not sure that you can have any reliable sort of morality check on someone who sells you weaponry to blow people up with.”

Carol sighs. “Yeah, well. Not really. Story of the army. I’m not in any position to defend it.”

“It’s alright. Sorry I brought it up.”

Carol looks at him, very seriously, for a second, then presses a kiss to his forehead. “You’re something else, Sam Wilson.”

“I kind of want to leave.”

“Did you have any fun at all?”

“Some,” Sam allows. "The food was good and the music was alright and some damn fine ladies asked me to dance. I just haven’t gotten so much press since me and Steve got back into town.”

Carol hums sympathetically. “Being partners with Captain America will do that.”

“Being associated with the Avengers kind of eases it a little,” Sam says. “Since there’s Stark and Steve to make public appearances for you, and Bruce and Nat and Thor for media spotlights.”

“Lucky them,” Carol says dryly. “If you really want to get out of here, come on. I need to say go find James and then we can hit the road.”

She pulls away from him again and Sam regrets the loss of her body against his. “Are you okay to drive?”

“Yeah, definitely. I don’t drink very much at these events. Gotta be on my best behavior.”

“I suppose.” Sam’s last glass of champagne had worn off an hour ago, so he feels mostly clear-headed, even if his mouth is a bit dry.

They find Rhodey forcing out laugher with a man who immediately sets Sam’s nerves on edge. Carol seems to feel the same, because she presses up to Rhodey’s side and says, “James, baby, we should be heading out.”

“Aw, Carol, it’s not that late,” Rhodey says, although Sam can tell that he’s desperately grateful for the out.

“I know, but we have work in the morning.” Carol slips just a hint of a whine into her voice as she hangs on Rhodey’s arm. “And I’m really tired.”

“Alright, alright.” Rhodey wraps an arm around her waist. “Sorry, Mr. Fisher, but looks like I’m heading out for the night.”

“Oh, I know how it is,” the man (Fisher, how appropriate), says with a laugh. “Gotta look after the missus. Tell you what, I’ll give you a call tomorrow afternoon and we can finish sorting this out.”

“Yes, very good. Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Colonel.”

Carol all but drags Rhodey away until they’re out of the man’s earshot, and then Rhodey lets out a sigh of relief. “Jesus Christ, thank you.”

“What a fucking sleezeball,” Carol says distastefully.

“Yeah, he really is,” Rhodey says. “Newly promoted at the end of last year. Sorry about him.”

“Do you think you’re in?”

“I do. If I can get a couple million out of the AFAS, then I can probably get Tones to do the rest off the books with a little begging.”

“What a trooper.” Carol reaches back and takes Sam’s hand, pulling him up so he’s in line with the two of them. “Sam's getting a bit overwhelmed and I’m tired of being here, so we thought we’d head out.”

“Can’t say I’m sorry,” Rhodey says as they file out the exit and start the trek down the hill to the parking garage. Carol hands her ticket to the valet and they all stand together, huddled against the stiff breeze, until they bring her car around. Carol takes her keys and gets into the driver’s seat and Sam takes the back again, but Rhodey squeezes in next to him. Sam blinks in confusion, but Rhodey doesn’t say anything and Carol doesn’t say anything and Rhodey’s presence pressed tight against his side feels nice, so Sam doesn’t say anything either.

About halfway back to Sam’s house, Rhodey leans his head against Sam’s and says, “Hey. I’m sorry we couldn’t spend much time together at the Ball.”

“It’s okay. Carol was telling me about all the crap you guys have to do to look professional there. It makes me glad I never ranked up too high. I never had to be important at events.”

“You’re important,” Rhodey says quietly.

“What?”

“You’re important. Even if you’d never made it past E-1, you’re still important.”

“Oh.” Sam can feel himself flush and is grateful that it’s too dark for Rhodey to be able to tell. “I mean, yeah, I know that, but I never had to be smooth at events like this.”

Neither Carol nor Rhodey takes the obvious line. Sam bites his lip and stares out the window.

“Thanks for coming with us, Sam,” Carols says from the front of the car. “I’m sorry if you didn’t have that great a time.”

“It’s okay. It was fun, sometimes. I don’t mind.”

Carol switches lanes and takes the freeway exit toward Sam’s neighborhood.

“Sam.” Rhodey’s voice sounds serious for how soft it is. “Why do you think we asked you to come with us?”

“Well, at first it sounded like you just wanted to hang out, but now I’m starting to think it was for arm candy reasons. Seriously, Carol, it’s like you have a type. Is it just black airmen who do it for you or what?”

“I’m attracted to competence, so I suppose it is,” Carol says.

Sam is definitely blushing now. He hopes Rhodey can’t feel the heat coming off his face.

“We asked you because we wanted to spend time with you,” Rhodey says. “And I couldn’t do that, and I’m not really happy about it.”

Sam swallows hard. “It’s okay, man.”

“We like being with you, Sam. We just want to do it more.”

Sam is pretty sure that Rhodey can hear his heart hammering in his chest. “Uh… what?”

He glances sideways and Rhodey is watching him. He feels suddenly self-conscious. Rhodey’s hand is resting against his thigh. Sam can feel the heat burning through his the leg of his pants.

“Are you… um…?”

“Yeah,” Rhodey says quietly, and then he leans over and kisses him.

Sam’s entire brain stutters to a halt for a second, because Colonel James Rhodes is kissing him in the back of his girlfriend’s car. James Rhodes is kissing _him_ in the back of his girlfriend's car, with one hand on his thigh and the other curling around the back of his neck. Sam can’t think – can’t even breathe, really, everything feels like it’s in slow motion…

And then he kisses back. He takes Rhodey’s face in his hands and he kisses back hard because he wants to, and because he’s wanted to for a while, he thinks, without even realizing it. He thinks he wanted to kiss Rhodey when they were flying around each other in the cold February air and Carol was circling around them in the tightest fighter jet the Washington DC airfield owned. He thinks that he wanted to kiss Rhodey over a basket of hot wings at a bar-slash-restaurant one night in January when Steve got stuck in traffic from Manhattan trying to pick him up and Carol bought a round of beers and they were all squished into a tiny booth at the busiest time they could have possibly picked. He thinks that maybe he wanted to kiss Rhodey the first time he saw the armor, when Rhodey rocketed above him and teased him for not being able to quite keep up, but kept saying that he wanted Sam to fly, that he wasn’t anyone Sam had to blindly respect, that he wanted to earn his titles and fly with him and _God_ , Rhodey’s mouth is hot on his. Rhodey’s arms are wrapped around him and his hand is still pressed tight against the back of Sam’s neck, holding him steady. Sam feels like he’s about to crawl out of his skin in the best possible way.

Neither of them notice that the car has stopped until Carol clears her throat delicately and says, “We’re here.”

Sam blinks and pulls away and says, “Oh,” because so they are. They’re a couple addresses down from Sam’s house, in the closest available parking space, and Carol was watching them… not intently, exactly, but Sam feels bared to her anyway. “Right. I’ll just…”

He grabs his jacket and scrambles out of the car, but Carol’s getting out of the driver’s side too and Sam thinks– he doesn’t know what he thinks. He doesn’t think she’ll yell or be angry because Rhodey wouldn’t have done that if she would be, but her expression is unreadable as she leans against the side of the car.

“Carol,” Sam says, for lack of anything better to say.

“Yes, Sam.”

Sam raises one hand, and then drops it again, and then reaches out to grab Carol’s hand. He squeezes it and she squeezes back, running her thumb over the tendons in his hand as they flex.

“I’m not reading this wrong, am I?” Sam murmurs. He hears a door open and close on the other side of the car. “Tell me I haven’t got this completely wrong.”

“You haven’t got it wrong,” Carol says. “Not at all.”

“Are you sure?”

“We’re sure,” Rhodey says behind him.

Sam’s throat feels tight. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Carol echoes softly.

She kisses different than Rhodey, in a complementary sort of way. Maybe some of it is her height, the fact that he has to reach up and she has to curl down to meet him, because Sam has never had a girlfriend who has this much height on him. Carol is gentle in ways that Rhodey is rough, sharp in ways that Rhodey is blunt. Sam doesn’t feel like he’s going to shake apart under her so much as he feels like he’s going to float away from the adrenaline screaming through his body.

Rhodey presses up behind him, circling his arms loosely about Sam’s waist, and he holds him as Carol kisses him. It’s one of the most surreal things that Sam has ever experienced.

He makes a sound when she pulls away - a quiet, needy sound that he’s instantly embarrassed about, but Carol touches his cheek and brushes her fingertips over his lower lip. She doesn’t look like she minds.

“We told you, Sam,” she says. “We just wanted to be with you more.”

“Oh,” Sam says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

Carol kisses him one more time, then backs away and opens the driver’s side door again. “It’s late. We really should get going, James,” she says as she gets in and pulls the door shut.

“Okay.” Rhodey sidles around Sam and pulls him down and kisses him too, more chastely than he had in the car. Sam nearly whimpers when he too pulls away. “We’ll see you on the airfield, Sam.”

Sam just nods as Rhodey walks around the car and gets in the passenger’s seat, and stays standing there, watching the two of them as they drive away, down his street and around a corner and out of sight. He stands there for a while, touching his fingertips against his lips, and then, once the chill finally breaks through the shell of adrenaline and shock, he goes inside and locks up for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proof that, once again, SPD!Sam has worked his way into another fic.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter of this fic! ~~I might continue the 'verse, though......~~  
>  Cheers to everyone who subscribed! <3

Sam forces himself to wait for about four days before he lets himself call Carol or Rhodey. He spends most of those four days at Avengers Tower with Steve and Natasha and the rest of them, running rescue drills that involve Steve jumping off of high things without telling him. Sam’s shoulders are killing him and he has a couple of slight burns on his back by the end of just the first day. Steve brings him an ice pack and some ibuprofen with a guilty smile and Sam forgives him on the condition that Steve picks up pizza and keeps Tony and Thor away from it until he can actually eat some. Half of the Avengers team pile into the common room and watch bad movies with him while the other half are off taking showers and tending to wounds and doing whatever it is that superheroes do in their spare time. Sam doesn’t know. He just knows that his shoulders hurt and that his pizza is really good and that Steve’s taste in movies is still terrible.

And then the next day, they get up and do it again.

By Wednesday morning, everyone is tired and sore and has strains and tears and bruises, so they disband. Steve decides to stay in New York, so Sam drives back with Natasha and they sing too loudly to the surprisingly large selection of pop music on Natasha’s phone as they speed down the I-95. They crash into the house a little before five in the afternoon and Natasha immediately goes off to take a bath in Sam’s master bathroom, leaving Sam to slump over on the couch in his living room and stare at the contacts list in his phone.

He scrolls between Rhodey and Carol’s numbers for a while, then sets his phone aside. He doesn’t need to call them. Even though he’s missed them since Saturday night, he doesn’t need to talk to them. They haven’t called him and he’s not sure where he stands with them yet, but he doesn’t need to.

Sam rolls his eyes at himself and picks up his phone. He hovers over Carol’s name, then decides to call Rhodey instead.

After a few rings, Rhodey picks up. “Hello?”

“Hey. It’s me.”

“Hey, Sam,” Rhodey says warmly. Sam can hear muffled conversation and papers shuffling in the background. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, really. Just haven’t heard from you guys in a few days.”

Rhodey groans quietly. “Yeah, I know, we’re sorry. The week or two after an Air Force thing is always awful. We’ve been running around getting money from people and dealing with the AFAS and having meetings all the time. It’s twelve hour days of networking bullshit.”

“Aw, man, that’s shitty. Is it turning out okay?”

“I guess. We’re getting less for Iron Patriot than I’d hoped, but the training budget is up. Logistically that’s great, but…”

“But Iron Patriot,” Sam finishes. “I got you.”

“Yeah. How’ve you been, then, the last few days?”

“Avengers training,” Sam says. “My back’s fucked to hell, and I nearly dislocated a shoulder on Tuesday because Rogers is fuckin’ heavy and doesn’t believe in warnings, but Clint patched me up alright.”

“I’ve heard that about Rogers. Carol’s good at massages, you should ask her next time you’re running rescue.”

“I’ll keep it in mind. Are you– what are you doing?”

“Me? I’m just packing up right now,” Rhodey says. “I have another meeting at seven in the morning, so I’m off early so I don’t sleep through it.”

“Do you think that I could maybe come by?” Sam asks.

“Uh… Yeah, sure,” Rhodey says. “Carol’s working late, though, she’ll probably be another few hours, at least.”

“That’s okay,” Sam replies. “I can just pick you up. I want to go for a drive.”

“Oh. To anywhere in particular?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Okay… Well yeah, sure, that’s fine. I’ll get my stuff together and wait by the gate for you. You need a card to get in now.”

“Alright, I’ll be there around five thirty.”

“See you then, Sam.”

Sam hangs up his phone and sighs. He allows himself one luxurious moment of painful self-doubt, then gets up off the couch and puts his shoes back on and heads out to the car he’s spent too many hours in today.

He’s been to Rhodey’s office exactly once before but he still has the address saved, so he lets GPS guide him to the outer perimeters of the building. Rhodey’s already there waiting for him, in dress slacks and a worn leather jacket and a shoulder bag hanging off his arm. Sam pulls to a stop in front of the gate and Rhodey gets in the car, tossing his bag in the back seat. Sam pulls away and gets back on the main road.

“Where are we going?” Rhodey asks.

“Not sure yet,” Sam replies.

He drives until they run into the edge of the Potomac. There’s a parking lot off to the side of the river, so Sam pulls into a spot facing the water and turns the car off. The sun is still halfway to setting, throwing shadows over the river and the banks and the hill leading to the lot.

“What are we doing at the Potomac?” Rhodey asks.

“Nothing, really.”

“Oh.”

They sit in silence for a moment.

“I want to know what you think you’re doing,” Sam says.

“Excuse me?”

“Not in an asshole way.” Sam backtracks. “Like, I get how that would have come across like that, but I didn’t mean it that way. I just want to know where you guys are going with this.”

“I’m not really sure what you mean,” Rhodey says.

“Like, are you and Carol trying to get on this?” Sam gestures at himself. “Because if that’s what you’re going for, then I’d prefer that you just come out and tell me. I’m not a fan of dancing around the sexy stuff.”

“We weren’t just trying to have sex with you,” Rhodey says flatly.

“Okay, then what? Are you just into kissing your friends? Which is fine, Nat and Clint do that all the time, and Steve too sometimes. I don’t care, but is that it?”

“No, Sam.” Rhodey sounds slightly frustrated. “I told you, we just want to be with you more.”

“Okay, but do you mean to be with me or, like, to _be_ with me? Because those are different things.”

Rhodey looks out over the Potomac. It looks still as the sun goes down. “We’re kind of working in it.”

“What do you mean, you’re working on it?”

“We don’t really know what we’re doing,” Rhodey admits. “Carol’s only had boyfriends in the military, and I’ve only had girlfriends full stop. And we know how we fit together, but we’re still trying to figure out where you fit in.”

“Why are you trying to fit me in? I’m just Tony’s rescue, I don’t even work with you–”

“Because we _want_ to fit you in,” Rhodey says. “And you’re not _just_ Tony’s anything. It doesn’t have anything to do with you being an Avenger, or the fact that you’re Steve’s partner, or any of that.”

“Okay, but… Why then?” Sam asks. “You’re– you’re you guys. You’re famous. You’re the Iron Patriot and Carol is one of the best pilots and espionage officers the military's had in the last ten years. Why are you trying to fit me into that?”

Rhodey pauses, then smiles to himself a little. “You know, I don’t know about Carol, but I think it’s because when you start running, right before you take off with those wings of yours and you’re still on the ground, just about to kick off, you look like you’re about to experience the best thing in the world. And I can see you with this wing pack thing that you got from the military and you went and did awful things with it. Not awful like bad,” he corrects when Sam opens his mouth to argue. “Because you were a pararescue, you saved lives, but you had to see terrible things. You saw a lot of shit in the air, even your old partner’s death…” Rhodey shrugs one shoulder and tilts his head to the side to look at Sam. “You have this terrible burden on you in that wing pack, but you still look at flying like it’s the greatest thing ever.”

Sam’s breath catches in his chest. He feels like he can’t breathe. Rhodey keeps watching him. The Potomac rushes on in front of them.

“I can’t speak for Carol exactly,” Rhodey adds. “But she feels the same. You love the things we love, but you love them so ardently. It’s one of my favorite things about you.”

“Oh,” Sam says.

Rhodey tenses beside him. “Oh?”

Sam shifts so his side is leaning against the car seat and he can look at Rhodey. “Oh.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘oh’.”

Sam kisses him in lieu of an answer.

“Oh,” Rhodey breathes when they break apart. He rests his forehead against Sam’s and touches his cheek with one hand.

“You need to tell me what you want, then,” Sam says. “Because I know what I want, but I don’t know what you want and I don’t want to assume.”

“We want you to be with us,” Rhodey says. “We want to be with you. Like, to _be_ with you. We don’t want the only times we see you to be in a government-controlled airfield where we can’t say what we want to you, or at public events where we can’t stand too close to you. I don’t like that I can’t even stand close to you without a layer of armor on. I just… We just want to be with you. I don’t know how else to say it.”

“No one ever said that you can’t do that,” Sam says.

“That’s why I’m asking.” Rhodey lets his hand slip from Sam’s cheek to the side of his neck. “That’s why I’m telling you. I don’t know how to date two people and neither does Carol and I don’t think you do either, and I don’t even know if what we want is dating. All I know is that I like flying with you. I like it when you come out of your house like you’re so excited, like we’re going to do the best thing ever, every time. I like– I like how you look at me now. When you first came out, you were all titles and respect and I see that all the time with the recruits, but now you don’t look like that anymore.”

“What do I look like?”

“Like when you see the suit fly, you’re watching me,” Rhodey replies. “Like I’m not the Colonel and I’m not the Iron Patriot and I’m not even War Machine. Like you’re just watching me because you want to see me.”

“I do want to see you. Did you ever think I didn’t?” Sam asks. “Did you really think I was in it for the suit?”

“You were never just in it for the suit,” Rhodey says. “But before, you looked like you were watching Colonel Rhodes. Now I feel like you’re looking at _me_.”

“I am looking at you.” The sun is down now, and the car is only illuminated by the parking lot’s street lamps. There’s one line of orange light down Rhodey’s cheek, spilling onto his jacket. His eyes glint in the half-darkness.

“I don’t know what to call it,” Rhodey says. “But I want you. I want to fly with you, but I want to sit down and hold you after, and touch you without making it look like a maneuver. I want to see you outside of an airfield, out of your old BDUs, when you’re just like this and you don’t have your wings and I don’t have the armor and Carol doesn’t have her jet and we’re all just as we are. I don’t… I don’t just want you because you can fly. I want you because I want to be able to just sit and talk to you about nothing, and because you’re funny, and because you’re a damn good kisser and because there are some things you get that Carol doesn’t, and because she likes you too. Do you get it?” He sounds a bit desperate now. “We want you because you’re you and the person you are is the person we want to be with, whether or not we’re in the sky.”

Sam, whose chest feels like it’s about to explode, says, “Oh.”

“The way I feel about Carol and the way I feel about you are different, but I think they’re just different because you’re different,” Rhodey says. “I want to be around you, Sam. I guess that’s what dating is, I don’t know. I just know that I want to be with you.”

Sam finally tears his gaze away from Rhodey and sits back down hard in the driver’s seat. The wind is starting to pick up. There are tiny whitecaps on the river now. Sam tries not to think about how Steve crashed into that same river a year ago.

“I don’t really know what to say,” he admits finally.

“You can think about it,” Rhodey says. He sounds a little hurt, buried under years of practiced composure.

“I know what I think,” Sam says. “I just don’t know what to say.”

“Say what you think?”

Sam takes a breath, and then another one. “I think that I’m kind of freaking out right now?” he tries unsteadily. “And I think that this is something that would be easy to fuck up. But...”

“But?”

“But I feel… I feel.” Sam rubs his face with one hand and takes Rhodey’s hand with the other. Rhodey’s palm is cool against his. “I feel like it hurt when Carol said I couldn’t dance with you at the charity ball, and that it felt good when you kissed me. And I feel like I want to kiss you again and have it not be weird.”

“It isn’t weird.”

“It’s a little weird. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting it in the car last weekend.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Rhodey says.

“No, I liked it,” Sam amends quickly. “It wasn’t bad. I just didn’t see it coming. Maybe I should have.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to dance with you,” Rhodey murmurs.

“It’s fine. Carol explained to me about the AFOSC and the photographers and stuff.”

“I still wish I could have.”

“I wish you could have too.”

They lapse into silence again. Leaves skitter across the pavement. Sam feels a buzz toward the base of his skull and his heart is still pounding.

“I think,” he says finally. “That the way you talk, it sounds like you’re into me.”

“I just spent ten minutes telling you that,” Rhodey says drily.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, okay, whatever, you know what I mean. You said you don’t know what you want, but that sounds a lot like dating to me.”

“Then maybe that’s what I want,” Rhodey says. “Maybe I want to pick you up with Carol in her boring-ass grey Audi and take you somewhere nice where I don’t have to beg for money, and maybe we want to take you back to our place and kiss you on the couch and pretend to watch movies. Maybe we want to ask you to date us.”

“Then ask,” Sam suggests faintly.

Rhodey sighs through his nose. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I have to talk to Carol.”

“Oh,” Sam says. “Right.”

Rhodey brushes his thumb over Sam’s. “Don’t think that’s bad, okay? Carol adores you. I think she likes you more than me, half the time, but two and a half years will do that to a person.”

Sam doesn’t laugh. “Then I think you should ask her,” he says instead. “And then I think you should pick a nice restaurant and call me.”

Rhodey smiles a little. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I also think,” Sam says. “That you should kiss me again.”

“That, I can definitely do,” Rhodey says as he unclasps his seat belt.

 

Sam drops Rhodey back off at his office after eight, then drives home and takes some ibuprofen and passes out in his bed. He wakes up in the morning so stiff that he can barely move, so he barters Natasha into giving him a full body massage in exchange for buying lunch. They go out and see a movie and Natasha asks where he went the night before. Sam considers telling her everything that’s been going on, but he still doesn’t know where he stands, so he just shrugs and says, “I went to see some friends.” Natasha accepts it without argument.

Over the course of the next three days, Sam gets two texts from Carol and one from Rhodey. They’re both clearly overworked and exhausted, but things are getting done. Carol seems optimistic that she’ll only be pulling double shifts for another week at maximum. Sam does feel bad for them, but can’t stop the niggling worry in his head. He wonders how much Carol knows. He wonders what Rhodey told her. They don’t bring it up and he doesn’t have it in him to try to drag it out of them.

They already have the airfield booked for Sunday. Rhodey made sure of it before the ball - both he and Carol were pretty sure they’d have to work late on Saturday. They do both look exhausted when they pick Sam up in the morning and trade yawns in the place of conversation. Carol is nursing an extra large coffee that Rhodey steals at red lights. Sam feels uncomfortably awake, but doesn’t want to break the silence, however uncomfortable it may feel.

When they get to the airfield, Carol takes off for one of the hangar’s tiny bathrooms and comes back with her face damp and flushed. Rhodey is sitting on the Iron Patriot case, finishing off Carol’s coffee. Sam hovers awkwardly around them, shifting the straps of the wing pack from hand to hand. He wants to get up in the air, but both Carol and Rhodey are moving so slowly today that he’s not sure if they’re going to fly at all.

Sam sets his wing pack on the ground to put on his gloves and his jacket, but Carol stops him with a hand on his arm.

“Hey, Sam,” she says.

“Yeah?”

“I’d like it if you would fly with me a little today.”

“I always fly with you,” Sam says, confused.

“No, I mean in the plane,” Carol clarifies. “Rhodey told me about your conversation on Wednesday, about how we see you fly, and I… I want you to see the way I fly, if this is something we’re going to share with you. I can see you flying all over with Rhodey, but I want you to see how I do it too.”

“Oh. Okay,” Sam agrees easily. “I mean, I have flown a plane before.”

“I know you have. But you’ve never flown with _me_ before.”

“Do you have space? Or an extra helmet?”

“I booked a second plane,” Carol says. “Which is a two-seater, and it has an extra helmet in it. I have my usual jet in the hangar too. We don’t have to do this the whole time. I just want you to see it.” She squeezes his arm gently. “I just want to fly with you.”

Sam feels himself nod. “Have you flown with Rhodey before?”

“I’ve flown with a lot of people before,” Carol says evenly. “Including Rhodey, yes.”

“Do you think he’ll mind?”

“I don’t think he gets much say in who I fly with.”

“Are we still talking about airplanes?”

Carol blinks at him for a moment, then cracks up laughing. “Christ. Yes, I am still talking about airplanes. Now get your ass to the hangar.”

She leads him past Rhodey, who is having a little trouble with the armor case, and into the number two hangar. There is a new plane in there, bigger than Carol’s usual jet (though not by a whole lot). Carol hauls the plane’s hatch open and reaches in to toss Sam the spare helmet. “Newbies first.”

Sam catches the helmet and takes a moment to figure out where everything goes. Then he straps the helmet onto his head and the rest of his body into the passenger’s seat. Carol climbs in on his left, pulling the hatch closed and flipping switches and doing up her own seat belts. She pulls on her oxygen tube, and then on his, before she nods, satisfied that they’re still safely connected.

“In this model, the passenger shoots,” she says. “So don’t touch your controls. I would much prefer James to be in one piece at the end of this.”

“No promises,” Sam says teasingly.

“Seriously, Wilson.”

“Right, sorry. I won’t.”

“Nothing is loaded, obviously, but just to be safe. Trigger safety isn’t just for rifles or pistols.”

“I know. Sorry.”

Carol reaches over and grabs the speaker microphone from the control panel. “Hey James, we’re ready in hangar two. Give me your status. One explosion for wait, two for go.”

They wait for a long moment, and then there are two muffled bangs, one right after the other, as Rhodey fires something into the air.

“Attaboy,” Carol says to herself. Then, into the speaker, “Roger that. Make sure you duck.” Then she powers the plane up and the engines roar to life. Sam feels abruptly claustrophobic and the right engine vibrates the metal against his side and he reaches for Carol’s hand without thinking.

“Hey,” Carol says over the sound of the engine. She turns Sam’s face with her free hand so he’s looking at her. “Are you panicking?”

“No.”

“Do you need to get out?”

“No, I’m alright.”

“Are you sure?”

Sam nods resolutely. His helmet thumps against the headrest. “Let’s do this.”

Carol grins. “Thats what I like to hear.” She adjusts the control column and pushes it forward and the plane starts taxiing out of the hangar. Once they’re free from the building, they pick up speed fast, and Sam doesn’t even see Rhodey in the Iron Patriot armor before Carol hauls the control column back and they push up into the air. Sam’s stomach lurches uncomfortably, but it settles just as fast. He realizes that his right hand has a death grip on the bottom of the seat, so he lets go and flexes his fingers painfully. Carol may be laughing at him.

She grabs the speaker again. “We’re up, James! Come out and play!”

As if on cue, something bright and metallic shoots in front of them. Sam yells and jumps more than a little, but Carol has a predatory smile on her face as she tracks Rhodey across the sky.

“Are you ready, Sam?”

“Uh… Am I?”

“Hope so!” Carol says brightly, and then she rolls the plane sharply to the left. The right wing cuts over them and Sam is vaguely aware that they’re upside down for just a moment before they’re right side up again. Rhodey speeds over them, just barely keeping from clipping the plane as he passes.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Carol says to herself. “Brace yourself, Sam.”

Sam braces his feet against the bottom of the plane and grabs onto the chair again. Carol pushes the control column forward and the plane dives as they start picking up speed again. The ground rushes up to meet them and Sam believes for just a split second that they’re really genuinely about to crash, but then Carol hauls back again and flips the plane as they rise and Sam can see as they flip that they’re rolling _around_ Rhodey. Carol breaks out of her barrel roll with two aileron rolls, then straightens out again and flies direct for a moment.

“Shit fucking Christ,” Sam says.

Carol laughs. “Are you okay?”

“I would have gotten _so much shit_ for doing that when I was enlisted.”

“I probably would have too,” Carol agrees. “But that move has saved my ass at least a few times in direct combat, so I think I’m pretty damn good at it.”

“You were in direct combat?”

“Yeah, ‘course I was,” Carol says. “You think you just become a Colonel by sitting on your ass doing paperwork?”

“No, no, obviously not,” Sam says hastily. “You just never mentioned.”

“Alright, well then. Yes, I deployed. I flew planes in scary places.”

“Where?”

“Three tours. Two in Iraq, one in Afghanistan.”

“Wow.”

Carol shrugs against her seat belts. “I came back alright.” She takes a deep breath and pulls the plane up one hundred eighty degrees, then flips it right side up again. Sam’s grip on the seat tightens. If he looks closely, he can see the tiny dot on the ground that is Rhodey’s Iron Patriot case glinting in the sun. Rhodey is doing big loops in front of them, leaving trails of light in his wake.

“How’s the view out there?” Carol asks Sam as she dips the plane a little.

“Uh… Are you gonna be offended if I say it’s terrifying?”

“Not really. Flying with someone else is hard after you’ve done it yourself,” Carol says. “I know. It’s awful. You’re not in control of yourself anymore. You have to trust your partner, trust that they’re going to fly you straight and keep you both in the air.”

“I trust you,” Sam says immediately.

“I know you do, and I appreciate that,” Carol replies. “But you’re still scared and that’s fine. You don’t just stop being scared of something because you trust the person you do it with. It takes time and practice. You have to develop that partnership and you have to really learn that they’re going to keep you in the air before you can stop being scared of it.”

Sam licks his lip and nods. “Again, are we still talking about airplanes?”

“I may not be this time,” Carol admits.

“Do you think… Are you sure this is the best place to talk about this, when we’re racing Rhodey around the airfield?”

“In the air is where we all feel right,” Carol says. “I don’t know anywhere better.”

“That’s– that’s true, I suppose.”

“Do you want to land?”

“No, it’s okay,” Sam says. “We got this.”

He doesn’t see Carol’s smile, but he can hear it in her voice. “Yeah, we do.”

They don’t actually get much talking done. Carol convinces Sam to let go of the chair, and then they end up racing Rhodey around the airfield. Rhodey wins because of his ability to take tighter turns, but he doesn’t win by much. Carol swears up and down over the speakers that it’s because of the bigger jet, and that she’s going to feed his own balls to him. Rhodey just hovers in front of them, somehow conveying a smirk through the armor’s expressionless face. Carol jerks the plane up and Rhodey flees and suddenly the chase is back on and Carol is driving them forward faster, shoving herself and Sam back into the seats. Sam’s heart is pounding in his ears but he can’t stop laughing, because he can never get this fast in his wings. He can turn tight, but Carol can go _fast_ and it’s exhilarating to be able to streak across the sky like this with Rhodey on their six and fly through their own trails.

When Carol finally lands the plane, she jumps out first and then offers her hands to help Sam. He takes them and stumbles out and collapses into her when he isn’t ready for how solid the ground is. Carol catches him around the waist and steadies him, but she doesn’t let go right away. She leans her head against his as she holds him still, and gradually, his arms find their way around her as well.

“Thanks,” Sam says. “For flying me.”

“It was an honor, Sam.”

“I want to fly with you more.”

Rhodey lands behind them with a loud metallic _clank_. He pops the face plate and Sam can see out of the corner of his eye that he’s sweating a little. Rhodey rests a gauntleted hand on Carol’s back, in between her shoulder blades, and Carol grunts a little at the impact as she straightens up.

“Sam likes flying with us,” she says.

“I know,” Rhodey replies. He’s watching Sam now over Carol’s shoulder. Even with the Iron Patriot armor, she still has a couple of inches on him. “I like flying with him too.”

“He wants to fly with us more,” Carol says.

“I think that’s a good idea.”

“I think we should take him out.”

“I agree.”

“I think we should take him out at seven next Friday.”

“What a coincidence that I have Friday night off.”

Sam glances back and forth between the two of them. “Did you guys literally script that?”

“James was nervous,” Carol says.

Rhodey glowers at her. “I was not.”

“You were, and like I was telling Sam, it makes sense,” Carol replies. “You can be scared even if you trust your co-pilots. It just takes practice.”

“Well, I’m definitely not averse to practice,” Rhodey says. He reaches out for Sam with his free hand and Sam shivers as the cold, hard metal of the armor settles on his shoulder. “I’d like nothing better.”

Sam tugs off one of his gloves and places it over Rhodey’s gauntlet. “Me neither.”

“Friday at seven?” Carol says.

Sam nods a little. “Friday at seven,” he repeats. “Now go get your other jet.”

Carol’s smile is dazzling as she looks down at him. “That’s the spirit.”

 

Friday at seven comes very fast.

When Sam gets home from the airfield, he’s buzzing with extra energy and he tells Natasha everything. Natasha gives him a look like he’s an idiot for thinking that she didn’t already know, but she also seems happy for him, and she agrees to help him pick out clothes if he wants. Sam is intensely grateful for having a friend like Natasha who takes everything into stride so easily.

He doesn’t know how, but somehow the next week slips away. Steve comes home and goes away again. Natasha runs into some people who don’t like her and spends a night in the hospital and another night in a safe house. Clint drops by on his way to Virginia to drop off some dossiers for the three of them. And then suddenly it’s Friday.

“This one matches your eyes,” Natasha says, holding up a shirt.

“No it doesn’t.”

“Okay, well _this one_ matches _Steve’s_ eyes.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Which would be great, if I was going on a date with Steve.”

“I’m sure you can ask,” Natasha says. “I’m not sure what he’d say, but you can certainly ask.”

Sam takes the pale blue shirt from her and hangs it back up in the closet.

“This is seriously not difficult and doesn’t actually matter,” he announces to the closet.

Natasha raises her eyebrows at him.

Sam sighs and shoves a few hangers with sweatshirts to the side. “White’s probably fine, right?”

“Yeah, white’s classic,” Natasha says. “Just don’t spill anything.”

Sam wrinkles his nose. “I have been feeding myself for three decades, I think I can handle having one dinner.”

“I don’t know, Rhodes is pretty dreamy.”

“Y’know what, I’m not even gonna argue that. He really is.”

Natasha smirks at him in the mirror.

She helps him settle on a white button down and a black blazer, which is exactly where they started. Sam feels stupid and tells her such; Natasha pats him on the back and says that she would be intimidated going on a date with Carol Danvers too.

“You know who Carol Danvers is?”

“We haven’t personally met, but I did some research,” Natasha explains. “She’s brilliant, you know. Amazing espionage officer. Kind of a shame she picked flying planes.”

Sam feels himself bristle a little. “She’s amazing at flying too. It’s what she loves.”

“Each to their own,” Natasha says. Sam feels annoyed that he’s annoyed.

Seven o’clock rolls around and they hear the familiar honk of Carol’s car. Natasha leans up on her toes and kisses Sam on the cheek. “You’ll be fine,” she says. “Have fun.”

“I know,” he says. “I will.”

He leaves Natasha standing in his living room and slips out the door and into the back seat of Carol’s car. Carol turns around and smiles at him and Sam completely fails in not staring at her. He’s never seen her in a dress before, only in her combats on the airfield and her Air Force mess for the charity ball. Her dress is tight and deep blue, and he hair is swept out of her face, pulled back in a loose bun. Her eyes are bright as she reaches back and turns his head to face her. “Hey there.”

“Hey,” he echoes. “Uh. You look really good. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. James does the same thing. He’s been doing it for three years,” Carol says affectionately. Rhodey leans over and kisses her cheek.

“You look good too, Rhodey,” Sam says, because Rhodey does. He has more experience looking good than Sam does and it shows in a perfectly tailored suit jacket and a blue tie to match Carol’s dress. “You both look really nice.”

Rhodey chuckles. “Pick your jaw up, Wilson.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Sam settles back in the seat and puts his seatbelt on. “Where are we going?”

“Rhodey was thinking Italian,” Carol says. “Does that sound good to you?”

“Yeah, that sounds fine.”

“So it shall be.” Carol does a search on her phone, then sets her GPS and starts the car.

Washington DC is a city full of people who crave secrecy. Sam doesn’t recognize almost any of the streets that Carol takes or any of the buildings they pass. He supposes they’re seeking out quieter places, away from the public eye. It’s kind of nice, but at the same time, Sam feels a little sad that they have to go out of their way to hide.

Carol parks in a parking garage and shoves everything under the seats or in the trunk before she locks the car up. She takes Sam’s hand in hers as Rhodey leads them out of the structure and to a hole in the wall little restaurant. He gives his name to the hostess at the front and she leads them through the restaurant to a quiet booth toward the back, promising them a quiet and discreet evening. Carol slides into one seat and Sam and Rhodey sit in the other. A waiter brings around menus and wine glasses full of water, and then the three of them are left in peace.

Sam scans the front and back of the menu in about forty-five seconds. “They don’t have a lot to offer, do they?”

“It’s great, though,” Rhodey says. “The food’s amazing, even if it’s a little limited.”

“I’m sure. What would you recommend?”

“The San Remo shrimp is good,” Carol suggests. “It’s a house specialty. Veal marsala is also really good. That’s probably what I’m going to get.”

“Can I steal a bit from you?”

“If you ask nicely when it gets here.”

The waiter comes around twice - once to get their wine order, and then again for food. Sam isn’t paying attention when Rhodey orders the wine - he just takes the glass when it’s offered to him and smells it before taking a sip. “This is nice.”

Rhodey nods and Carol smirks. “Glad you think so.”

“What kind is it?”

Carol covers her mouth and is saved from having to answer by the waiter coming back to take their orders. Sam decides to go with Carol’s suggestion and gets San Remo shrimp over some type of pasta. Carol gets the veal, like she said, and Rhodey gets chicken parmigiana, which Carol teases him for. Sam swirls his wine around in his class and takes another sip.

“So what did you do today?” he asks.

Carol and Rhodey look at each other and groan in unison.

“Alright then,” Sam says. “Because I read dossiers about HYDRA bases for three hours and I was kind of hoping that you guys had more fun than me.”

Carol shakes her head. “Public relations. It’s not really a nightmare anymore, but I’m tired of it. I’ve had so many meetings with the the AFAS this week. I’m not even PR, they’re only sending me because they don’t have enough women working in the right departments.”

Sam nods. “Did you tell them to give you their extra twenty-three cents?”

“No, because I don’t want to get fired, but I wanted to.”

Rhodey pours them both more wine. Carol drinks nearly half of her glass in one go.

“Really, what kind of wine is this?” Sam asks. “It’s nice. It’s not too dry. Nat likes dry wine, so it’s all we ever have in the house.”

Carol picks up the bottle and looks at the label. “It would appear that James picked out _menage á trois_ for this evening’s entertainment.”

Sam glances at Rhodey, who ducks his head to hide his smile. “Did he, now.”

“In my defense,” Rhodey says. “It’s a good dinner wine.”

“In your defense, it’s threesome wine, you mean,” Sam counters. “You bought wine to pick me up.”

Actually,” Rhodey says, and then starts laughing again. “Actually, I just ordered it for the pun.”

Sam shakes his head and has some water instead. “Clever.”

“Isn’t he?” Carol says fondly. She clinks her glass against the wine bottle.

They tease Rhodey until a server comes around with their plates, and then all conversation devolves into how good everything is. Sam has never been the biggest seafood fan, but Carol was absolutely right in that the shrimp is amazing. They all trade bites back and forth because there’s no one in the adjacent booth to stare at them judgingly. Sam resolves to steal more of Carol’s veal when she’s not looking, but she seems to be watching him almost constantly with a little smile on her face.

“What is it?” Sam asks finally, when their plates are mostly clean and Rhodey is scraping up the last of his parmesan.

“What’s what?”

“Why do you keep watching me like that?”

“Like what?”

Sam leans his head on his hand and and lowers his eyelids a little. “Like this.”

Carol blushes faintly and takes her elbow off the table. “I hadn’t noticed. Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay, I was just wondering.”

“My guess, Sam, would be that she likes being out with you,” Rhodey says in an exaggerated stage whisper.

Sam clears his throat quietly and takes another hasty sip of wine. Rhodey laughs and nudges Sam’s shoulder with his own.

“You’re good, Sam, it’s okay,” he says. “It’s fine.”

“I know,” Sam says. “I just… I’m glad that I’m out with you two, you know? It’s nice.”

Carol reaches across the table to hold his hand and Rhodey presses a kiss to his temple. Sam sets his wine glass down and cups Rhodey’s cheek instead, then kisses him gently. Rhodey tastes like wine and chicken and a little bit of cheese and something that is uniquely Rhodey. Sam feels pleasantly tipsy and even more pleasantly warm as Rhodey’s hand snakes around to the back of his neck. Carol squeezes his hand and Sam squeezes back and turns away from Rhodey to look at her.

She looks happy, Sam thinks. Carol usually looks pretty cheerful, but right now she looks genuinely content to sit and watch him and Rhodey kissing. He smiles a little at her and she raises his hand to kiss his palm. Sam shivers and curls his fingers along the line of her jaw. She presses against him, just barely enough for it to be noticeable. It makes Sam’s fingers feel tingly.

Rhodey’s arm is suddenly solid around his waist and Rhodey’s body is leaning into Sam’s side and Carol is leaning across the table, so Sam meets her halfway. He brushes her hair out of the way so it doesn’t get in any of the plates and she drags his other hand to her face. Her skin is smooth but wind-worn, he notices, and feels a small rush of heat in his stomach. He strokes over her cheekbone with his thumb and she sighs into his mouth.

Sam hears someone say something quiet, and then he hears Rhodey reply, but he doesn’t know what either of them are saying. He feels like he should pull away, but Carol’s hands are on his shoulders, holding him still, do he doesn’t try very hard. He just lets her kiss him and eventually, the voices stop and footsteps fade away from their table.

“You guys are subtle,” Rhodey says, at normal volume. “There’s a dessert menu.”

“Is it worth it?” Sam breathes.

Carol shakes her head minutely. Rhodey shrugs next to him. “Compared to what?”

“To this?”

“To kissing Carol? Probably not.”

Carol makes a pleased noise and kisses Sam again, hot and open-mouthed. Sam immediately forgets about a dessert menu and lets himself fall into her.

He feels a rush of breath against his jaw, and then Rhodey is kissing his neck. Sam bites back a quiet groan and drops one hand from Carol’s face to grab at Rhodey’s thigh. Rhodey tugs at the collar of his shirt and mouths at the junction of Sam’s throat and shoulder and Sam shudders under his ministrations.

“This is really… ostentatious,” he murmurs.

“I don’t care,” Rhodey says. His voice sounds deeper than usual, and a little rougher. Sam bites his lip.

“Me neither,” Carol agrees. “We’ve been waiting for this for weeks. If you’re not sure or you want us to stop, then we’ll stop, but if you don’t, then just let us have this.”

“Let you have me, you mean?”

“Yes,” Carols says bluntly. “That’s all we really wanted.”

Sam’s face is warm. “Okay,” he says. “You can have me, then.”

“Good.”

Sam’s elbow hits the table a little hard and the plates clink against the wood, but he doesn’t care. He can’t focus on anything except Carol’s mouth against his and the way her tongue flicks just a little against his lower lip, or the way Rhodey’s teeth feel sharp as they just barely scrape over his collarbone. It’s almost too much, in the best possible way. Instead of lost or panicky, he feels grounded.

They don’t notice when the waiter delivers the bill until he clears his throat as he retreats. Carol tosses her card on the little platter and Rhodey digs in his wallet for the tip. Neither of them will let Sam pay anything, so he just waits as they sort it out amongst themselves, tucked against Rhodey’s side, not _quite_ pawing at him, but not trying not to either. Rhodey hands Carol a few tens and then pushes Sam against the edge of the booth and kisses him again, much harder than before. Carol has to physically reach over and pull Rhodey away so she can pay the bill. Rhody waggles his eyebrows at her and she can’t help but laugh. She mutters something like “can’t take you anywhere” as the waiter disappears with her card, and then returns with a receipt. Carol signs off quickly, pockets her credit card, and leaves the cash on top, then grabs both Rhodey and Sam by the arms and practically pushes them out of the restaurant.

She pins Sam against the back door of the car in the parking garage to kiss at his neck. She’s much more insistent than Rhodey, and Sam is pretty sure that he’s going to have to pop the collar of his shirt up when he gets home. Carol undoes the top button of his shirt and licks a small stripe over the hollow of Sam’s throat, then pulls away and gets into the driver’s seat of the car, leaving Sam standing there, blinking.

“Um… What?”

Rhodey, who is leaning against the other side of the car, just laughs. “Get in the car, Sam.” Sam blinks at him owlishly, but complies.

Carol again parks a few houses down from Sam’s when they get back to his neighborhood, but this time, she slides into the back seat with him. She grins at him and rubs a thumb over what must be a pretty dark mark on his throat, if it stands out against his skin enough for her to see it. “My bad.”

“Don’t act like you’re sorry,” Sam says, a little breathless.

“I never said I was sorry,” Carol replies. She has that predatory grin from the airfield again. “I just said it was my bad.”

Sam hears the door open and close behind him and then Rhodey’s chest is pressing against his back, Rhodey’s hands are reaching around his body and pulling him back tight against him. Carol leans over Sam’s shoulder to kiss him, and Sam takes the opportunity to press his face into Carol’s shoulder. She smells nice, like some hint of perfume that isn’t overpowering, and also like fresh copy paper. He wraps one arm around her waist and pulls her close to him and closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Rhodey strokes at his stomach and Carol’s nails scratch at his scalp (a secret weakness of Sam’s) and he melts between them, letting his head fall back against Rhodey’s shoulder. Carol’s eyes gleam as she looks down at him, but she doesn’t go for his throat again. She just curls over him, bumping her nose against his jaw, as she leans down to whisper in his ear. “We want you.”

“What?” Sam asks. “Like, right now?”

“No, not in the car,” Carol says with a slight huff of laughter. “But we want you, with us. To date you, if you want to call it that. I think I could stand having two boyfriends, especially if they looked like you two.”

Sam squirms a little. Rhodey holds him tight and presses a light peck to the shell of his ear.

“You said to figure out what we wanted, Sam, and we have,” he says. “What we want is you. We want to take you on dates and spend time with you. I want to see Carol kiss you the way she does.”

“And I want to see James touch you, if that’s something you want,” Carol adds. “We want to take you home and hold you, or more if you felt like it, and kiss you good night, and good morning if you stay.”

“We want to take you out and then stay in, maybe curl up in front of Carol’s apartment’s ridiculous fireplace and watch awful movies,” Rhodey says. “And Carol likes hiking so we’ll probably do that with you too.”

“And fly,” Carol finishes. “We want to fly with you, always. That’s my favorite place to see you, Sam. But maybe we can make some new favorite places.”

She’s watching Sam, and Rhodey is too. Sam opens his mouth, but nothing he can think of to say seems good enough, so he just nods.

Carol breathes out a sigh that sounds like relief and she presses her face against Sam’s neck again. “Good. Great. I’m glad.”

“Yeah,” Sam whispers against her hair. “Yeah, me too.”

They stay there in the car like that, wrapped up in each other, until the cold starts to permeate the doors and Rhodey’s legs start cramping. Then they both kiss Sam goodbye, and then they kiss him again, and again until Carol drags Sam out of the car so that he can go home and she can drive. He stands in the same spot as he did two weeks ago, watching the same car pull away and turn down the same street, but he feels light now and he can’t shake the grin on his face.

Not that he would want to. Not that he would ever want to shake them from him.

So he stands and he grins and he feels almost like he’s floating, and then finally, he goes back inside.

 

Rhodey’s face plate slides into place with a metallic hiss and the eyes illuminate themselves. The gauntlets pull the straps on Sam’s wing pack and drag them a little tighter. Sam flexes and shifts to settle the wings better and jumps up and down a few times to get them properly locked into place. The padding rests firmly against the curve of his back and doesn’t slap against his body anymore.

Behind them, Carol is running checks on her jet. Her helmet is on already, so Sam can only see the part of her face that isn’t obscured by the heavy plastic exterior. She looks totally in her element as she flips switches and guns the engines in turn. The plane rumbles loudly. None of them really listen.

Rhodey clicks the last of the buckles of Sam’s wing pack and steps back to look at him. “You’re good to go. I don’t know why Tony insisted on adding so many straps.”

“Because he seems certain that I’m going to get ripped out,” Sam says.

“Well, we wouldn’t want that.” Rhodey claps him on the shoulder (Sam’s knees threaten to buckle slightly) and then turns around to face the empty airfield. It’s early in the morning - the sun as just come up over the horizon and the air is cold but clear. Sam takes a deep breath in, then sighs contentedly. The cold sears his lungs and it makes him feel sharp and alert.

“Are you boys ready?” the loudspeakers blare. Sam gives the jet a thumbs up and Rhodey salutes it. “Let’s get to it, then.”

The engines roar and the plane rushes forward, bounces a couple of times of the tarmac, and pulls up into the air. Rhodey engages the armor’s thrusters and flies after her, looping lazily around the plane’s trail. Sam watches them for a moment, smiling to himself, and hooks his thumbs under the straps to re-adjust their position on his shoulders.

Then he takes a running start, opens his wings up, and kicks off into the sky to join them.

  



End file.
